Since its invention in 2001, superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) has rapidly grown into a star photon detector in the near-infrared band. Up to date, its system detection efficiency has exceeded 95% at the wavelength of 1550 nm, dark count rate less than 1 cps (counts per second), timing jitter better than 10 ps, detection rate higher than 1 GHz, and it is widely used in the field of quantum information. Recently, limited by the low signal-to-noise ratio and afterpulsing of semiconductor single-photon detectors in the near-infrared band, researchers began to introduce SNSPDs into biology. This article introduces the detection principle and performance of SNSPD, and review the application status and development prospects of SNSPD in the field of biology.